Gundam 00 - Season One

GUNDAM 00 - Season One

The first season of the critical and commercial hit, based around the Gundam Franchise. 

Note - I am reviewing the seasons seperately, followed by the movie, because the story format makes this division itself, much like Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny did. 

 OVERVIEW - The First Gundam series set in the A.D. timeline, as opposed to alternate timelines like all the other series, This series also breaks with the Gundam tradition of a conflict between the Earth and Colonies. A "Real Robot" series featuring the sort of mecha design excellence that people have come to expect from a Gundam series, it pits the three main alliances of the world against a private military force, intent on ending warfare by using the Gundam mobile suits. 

REVIEW - You cant have seen any anime and not know of the Gundam franchise, one of the first of the "Real Robots" type of series it began in 1979 and its iconic mecha designs have influenced almost all similar series since. Gundam 00 is unique in the franchise due to the setting, while all others have featured conflict between a unified Earth force and a collection of colony dwellers and are normally set in a future thats adopted a different measure of time (Universal century, After colony, Advanced generation as examples) 00 is set in the A.D. timeline, 300 years or so into our own future, and most colonies are in development, not yet independant of earth. It's world is also not unified, with three major powers fighting politically for dominance, with standing militaries designed to keep the others "in check", a concept refered to as a "zero sum" act. 

War still rages, fueled by the same petty reasons that wars happen now, religion, racial difference, politics, but another cause has emerged, Energy. In particular the end of the era of fossil fuels, prompting the creation of three space elevators and a solar energy collection ring built around the earth. The three national alliances, The "Union" made up of the America's, Japan and Australia, the "Advanced European Union" or "AEU" comprising of most of Europe, Greenland and several of the old soviet states and finally the "Human Resource League" or "HRL" that encompasses Russia, China, India and the Island chains of Australasia, control one of the elevators each, and as such can dictate where and how the energy is distributed. Countries that used to rely on oil to drive their economies have been bankrupted by this, and war over the construction of the elevators, the distribution of power and what little resources are left in the non-aligned countries has raged for over 20 years at the start of the season, in A.D. 2307. 

The show deals heavily with concepts such as War, peace, human cost and suffering, political postering and manuvouring to gain the upper hand over the competition and with change, how it can be achieved and the effects of the process. While the main characters are nearly all involved in war, there is a couple of university students who's daily lives are shown, reacting, interacting and becoming aware of the changing world around them, giving very much an "everyman" perspective on things, something often overlooked by most action anime, or even series. 

Storywise, the show follows the group known as "Celestial Being", a private group affiliated with no country, aliiance or company who arrives out of the blue with mobile suits that far out-perform anything the major militaries have, informing the world that they will intervene in any type of military action, in order to remove warfare from the Earth.

The pasts of 3 of the 4 pilots, or "Meisters", are slowly explored across the opening 14 episodes, as each of one of them has a painful past related to war, while the militaries of each of the 3 alliances try various methods to capture the Gundams, while never succeeding. Its revealed that the Gundam's use a unique type of power system, a key reason to their dominance in battle, and that the founding of the organisation goes back over 200 years, to a genius scientist called Aeolia Schenberg, considered the father of the concepts behind the space elevators and solar generation plants. Around the 14th episode the pace picks up, with the introduction of 3 new units, outside of "the plan" set forth by Aeolia Schenberg, and with them comes more revelations on the history of the Gundams, the "plan" and the Meisters themselves. Its also from this point on that people start to die, characters you've been seeing since the start, and grudges that will carry to the end of the season and beyond begin to form. 

As the season nears its end, a lot of truths come out, such as the truth behind Veda, the three extra Gundams, the sad past connection of two of the meisters and their shared vengance and the final climactic battle is one full of action, heartbreak and foreshadowing for the second season, of which there has been a few moments of already (noticable once you've seen the second season..) and a change comes to the world, if its a change for the better, or for the worse is left for the second season to explore.. The final moments show a scene 4 years into the future, the time frame of the second series, and set up a nice enticement for the next series. 

Character wise, they develop slowly, with the main protagonist, Setsuna F. Seiei, at first appearing to be a disspassionate, emotionless person. At various points in the season he begins to show some rage, then some compassion and his stoic, emotionless appearance is shown to be mostly a grim determination to achieve his goals. two other meisters, Lockon Stratos and Allelujah Haptism, have their pasts explored a little, and their characters are shown to be growing, developing bonds with others, seeking peace from their troubled pasts and coming to terms with themselves to a degree. The web of connections between all the main characters is complex however, and its a relatively large cast so it would take too long to go into here, but almost all of the active members of Celestial Being have war related emotional trauma, likely a reason why they were approached to join, and most of them have it explored. The only exception to this is Tieria Erde, who is bossy, condescending and aloof with all the members of Celestial Being, even more so with his fellow Meisters. His story, the past and reasons for his being there, form a major part of the second season and are not really explored in the first. He is seen to have grown somewhat by the end of the season, experiencing his own war trauma and becoming more approachable and friendly with others.

The plot is similarly expansive, while seeming straight forward enough, celestial being attacks anyone involved in warfare, making the nations mad at them, there is "the plan" that is always mentioned, the secrets of the organisation and of Veda, and the goal behind the goal that celestial being have stated.. Much of this is explained at the end of season 1 and during season 2 so I wont go into spoilers. It is worth sitting through the slower starting episodes however, because the story is much like a snowball, starting small and slow but picking up pace into a monster.

Gundam 00 season one on its own is a great piece of work, not amazing, but has plenty of twists, turns and shocks in store as it moves though its 25 episodes. With the promise of more action, more intrigue and all the answers about "the plan", the future of humanity and the secrets of the Gundam's revealed in season two, it grows from just a great piece into part of something amazing.

SUMMARY -

Story -  Season one presents itself as a complete story, but it better viewed as a volume of a larger, three part story. It does a good job of providing enough information to start with, setting up mysteries and plots to be unwravelled as the story progresses. It uses the protagonists as atagonists, setting them up to possibly be the "bad guys" later on, and begins to expand and explain the depth of "the plan" behind it all. The final few episodes have suprises, shocks and sadness galore, and the last episode ends in a way I suspect most series, anime or otherwise, would be reluctant to and on, showing the real menace behind the chaos then setting up the scene for the second season. Some of the characterisations are a little hammy, but in a way that suits the characters acing that way. On its own, however, its a little weak in places, with much left for season two to resolve. 8/10

Production - Second to none, comparable in most places to motion picture anime levels. Reported as having an animation staff of over 300 people however, this is to be expected. Seemless CGI, consistant styles and no odd body distortions either, makes great use of saturation effects as well. Voice acting is top notch, with emotion dripping from every voice exactly where it should be. My only gripe is that towards the end of the season they begin to re-use animation sequences, especially in the UN GNX unit's fights with the thrones. Possibly due to budget constraints, but annoying none the less. Should be noted this is not as bad as Gundam WING or SEED/SEED Destiny's almost constant re-use of the same animation sequences, so is a step forward for the franchise. 9/10

Music -   An amazing score accompanies this series, with an epic score almost comparable to the work of "Two Steps from Hell" in places. Insert songs taken from contemporary artists are well used, adding to the atmosphere of the piece. The series has two opening themes, two ending themes, the first opening theme "Daybreak's Bell" by a "Visual Kei" band called "L'Arc-en-Ciel" is in my eyes being the weakest of them all, the first ending being a very stompy rock piece called "Wana" (Trap) by "The Back Horn". The second opening is a huge personal favourite of mine (as well as my ringtone) called "Ash like Snow" by "The Brilliant Green", its ending harkening back to the "heavy opener, melancholy ending" style used by SEED with the very Avril Lavigne sounding "Friends" by the Artists "Stephanie". Well worth checking out on its own. 10/10
 

Accessability - Set all over the world, and above it, for the most part, the show is very easily accessable to most. The parts involving Saji and Louise in Japan are clearly noted as being in Japan, and there's even a section with Louise showing off certain Japanese things to her mother. None of the international characters show any out-of-place actions, and there's no strange japanese customs appearing in America or Europe either. 9/10

Overall Impression - Gundam 00 is one of the best anime's i've seen, with excellent production, an amazing score and soundtrack and a strongly resonating storyline. I've always enjoyed the Gundam series because of their views on warfare and the cost to the individuals caught up in it and this series does this in such a way that really hits home for me. The basic idea behind "the plan" is such a good one, and one i've been personally saying myself for decades that it baffles me why humanity as whole still hasnt seen it. As this is the part where my personal opinion influences the score, its only my desire to maintain a level of integrity that prevents me from giving this 100 out of 10... 10/10

Final Score - 46/50